The order was for all American citizens to leave Havana, and the order was obeyed, but not without having laid the matter formally in council before my staff of assistants and taking their opinion and advice, which was to the effect that, while personally they would prefer to remain for the chance of the little good that might be accomplished, in view of the distress which we should give our friends at home, and, in fact, the whole country, when it should be known that we were inside that wall of fire that would confront us, with no way of extricating or reaching us, it seemed both wiser and more humane to leave. And the 9th of April saw us again on shipboard, a party of twenty, bound for Tampa. We would not, however, go beyond, but made headquarters there, remaining within easy call of any need there might be for us. Here follow the few weeks of impending war. Do we need to live them over? Do we even want to recall them? Days when the elder men of thought and memory pondered deeply and questioned much! When the mother, patriot though she were, uttered her sentiments through choking voice and tender, trembling words, and the young men, caring nothing, fearing nothing, rushed gallantly on to doom and to death! To how many households, alas, these days recall themselves in tones never to be forgotten! Notwithstanding all this excitement and confusion and all the pressure that weighed upon him, our good President still remembered the suffering, dying _reconcentrados_, and requested that a ship be provided as quickly as possible, loaded from the warerooms of the indefatigable Cuban Relief Committee in New York, and be sent for the relief of the sufferers in Cuba whenever they could be reached. One need not say with what promptness this committee acted, and I was informed that the _State of Texas_, laden with fourteen hundred tons of food, would shortly leave New York _en route_ for Key West, and it was the desire of that committee and the Government that I take command of the ship, and, with my staff and such assistants as I would select, undertake the getting of that food to its destination.